MLB Notebook: Sox wrestle with how to preserve Sale in '18; big-name starters flop in playoffs & more

It’s too late to change anything for this October, and for that matter,  likely too late to do anything to help the Red Sox advance deeper into this post-season.

But already, the Red Sox have begun discussing what they can do next season to make Chris Sale more prepared for the most important time of year: the playoffs.

Sale’s career-long habit of experiencing a drop-off in performance in the second half of seasons continued in this, his first year in Boston.

In the first half of this season, Sale posted a 2.75 ERA; in the second half, it was 3.12. After limiting hitters to a .562 OPS in the first half, that number shot up to .661 in the second half. Similarly, his .901 WHIP in the first half increased to 1.073.

It’s also been well-documented that, statistically speaking, September is the roughest month of Sale’s career, with a 3.78 ERA. August is 3.22. The other four months, by contrast, are all under 3.00.

Sale’s post-season debut was a disaster Thursday, as his struggles continued. He allowed two homers in the first and seven runs in five innings.

What can the Sox do to alter that pattern in 2018 and beyond?

“I’ve already had conversations with others in the organization about this,’’ said John Farrell. “The highest number of pitches he’s thrown (in a game) has been 118. We’ve taken every available additional day (of rest) and provided it. And this is where it’s a great debate, because you need every start to get to the postseason.  And yet, do you provide a longer break at some point during the season if you’re afforded a place in the standings to do that.’’

As it turned out, the Red Sox clinched their division in Game No. 161, meaning they didn’t have much wiggle room. If they had skipped a start or two with Sale during the season, might that have cost them the division in the final week of the season? How do they find the proper balance?

As far back as spring training, Sale was brought along with the big picture in mind. He didn’t make his first start until the second week of the Grapefruit League schedule to ensure that he was brought along slowly. And still, it couldn’t prevent him from seemingly running out of gas in the closing weeks.

“I’m sure there’ll be opportunities to sit with Chris at the appropriate time and look back on what he’s gone through this year,’’ said Farrell, “and maybe get a different read on what he’s done differently in the off-season at times if there’s been anything different. But this has to be more of a concerted effort and a group plan.

“If you take ‘x’ number of starts and a certain number of innings per start, do your purposefully back off? Those are all things that being considered.’’

One thing is certain: something has to be done. Sale is too important – and under control for just two more seasons – to have 2018 unfold like all of his previous seasons.

Perhaps the Sox can do what they once did with Pedro Martinez, and arrange their rotation so that he gets some time off on either end of the All-Star break.  In the macro picture, having Sale miss a July start against a second-division team isn’t nearly as important as having him available – and at full strength – when the calendar flips to October.

This year can be the baseline, since it’s also the first in which Sale pitched past the end of the regular season. It did not go well.  It behooves the Sox to figure out how to manage Sale more carefully so that he’s close to optimum when the games mean the most.

Anything less is wasting their top pitching asset.

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This was The Week That Wasn’t for elite starting pitchers.

In the American League wild-card game between the Twins and Yankees, New York starter Luis Severino couldn’t get out of the first inning, knocked around for three runs, while his counterpart, Ervin Santana, lasted just two innings, allowing four runs.

The next night, it was more of the same on the N.L. side, where Colorado’s Jon Gray was shelled for four runs on seven hits in just 1.1 innings and Arizona Zack Greinke gave up four runs in 3.2 innings.

The trend continued in Game 1 of the ALDS. Sale allowed two first-inning homers and was done after five innings having given up seven runs on nine hits, three of them homers.

Quality starting pitching finally prevailed in Game 1 of the Indians-Yankees series, but it didn’t extend much past then: Corey Kluber, the presumptive Cy Young award-winner in the American League, couldn’t get through the third, blasted for six runs in 2.2 innings.

More? Taijuan Walker allowed four runs in the bottom of the first for Arizona, and while he was credited with the win, Clayton Kershaw, whose post-season struggles are well-established, didn’t exactly dazzle and allowing four runs in 6.1 innings.

There were, to be sure, great pitching performances. Kyle Hendricks and Stephen Strasburg both pitched brilliantly in Game 1 of the Cubs-Nationals series, and as the Red Sox know only too well, both Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel were plenty good in their outings.

But more than half of the starts made in the first four days of the post-season resulted in multi-run first innings, extensive bullpen usage, and large deficits to overcome in the early innings.

If the likes of Sale, Severino, Kluber, and Kershaw can’t be trusted to provide quality starts in the most important outings of their respective seasons, who can? And why are teams intent on paying between $20-$30 million per season for the right to secure these pitchers?

Perhaps these poor starts are the cumulative effect of the long season, with pitchers no longer able to withstand spring training, 30-plus starts and then the demands of the post-season, where each pitch carries greater significance. Or maybe there were outliers.

Either way, know this: the next time a similarly talented starter becomes available – either by trade or via the free agent market – it’s a safe bet that teams will climb over one another to pay the necessary asking price, be it a bushel of top prospects, or nine-figure, long-term deal.

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Each October brings with it some surprises, as coaches are dismissed and staffs are turned over, without warning.

The Tampa Bay Rays sounded the first shocker when they fired pitching coach Jim Hickey and replaced him with former Red Sox swingman Kyle Snyder.

Hickey is well-regarded in the industry and undoubtedly will find work soon – already, the Mets and Cardinals have been mentioned as potential landing spots – but the move still caught everyone off-guard.

By all accounts, Hickey had done a solid job with the Tampa pitching staff over the year, helping to develop an assembly-line of young starters, including David Price, Chris Archer, Alex Cobb, Matt Moore and others.

It’s believed that manager Kevin Cash, having just completed his third season with the Rays, wanted more input into the composition of his coaching staff, having inherited Hickey (and others) from Joe Maddon’s staff.

Cash and Synder, of course, were teammates for a time with the Red Sox and already had a relationship. Cash liked Snyder’s familiarity with the young pitchers in the Tampa system (having worked in the minors since 2012), his communication skills, and the fact that he was a journeyman of sorts in his own career, having dealt with some failure of his own.

“I would say, to some degree, I think it has helped me become the pitching coach that I am,’’ said Snyder of his own playing career. “The experiences that I’ve gone through, the frustrations that I’ve dealt with.’’
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By most accounts, it has not been a stellar year for the Red Sox medical and training staffs.

On three occasions in the last two months, they have cleared players to return to play, only to have those decisions backfire with the same injuries quickly aggravated.

In early August, Dustin Pedroia was cleared to return after spending a DL stint with knee inflammation. He played one game, as DH, and then, within days, was returned to the DL.

The same scenario happened with Eduardo Nunez –twice. After suffering a sprained PCL (posterior cruciate ligament), he came back on Sept. 5, only to reinjure the knee on his second at-bat of the game.

Nunez then rehabbed for a while, before undergoing tests last week. From that, he was again cleared to return, and again, re-injured himself in his very first at-bat. It’s now presumed that he’s done for the season.

Add in the training staff’s involvement uncovered in the Apple Watch scandal and that’s another bad look.

But according to a club source, the Sox aren’t currently contemplating any changes to either the medical staff or athletic training staff.  The feeling is that the players understood the risks and uncertainties associated with returning, and did so knowing that time was running short.

That, and the belief that diagnosing a player’s readiness to return from chronic conditions remains a somewhat inexact science has resulted in the current personnel staying in place.